Roger Waters is an English rock musician, singer-songwriter, and composer best known for his work with the legendary rock band Pink Floyd. Over the last few years, he has emerged as a prominent advocate for Palestinian human rights.

Roger Waters

Co-founder,

Pink Floyd

Panel Discussion Featuring:

Linda Sarsour

Co-founder,

MPower Change

Linda Sarsour is a Palestinian-American political activist and co-founder of MPower Change, the largest Muslim-led social and racial justice organization in the nation. She is also co-chair of the Women’s March.

Dave Zirin is the sports editor of The Nation, appears regularly on MSNBC and ESPN, and is the author of 10 books on the politics of sports. He was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for his book The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World.

David Zirin

Sports Editor,The Nation

Marc Lamont Hill is a professor and public intellectual well-known for his work on television as a political analyst. He is a correspondent for BET News, and was recently fired by CNN for comments he made about Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Marc Lamont Hill

Temple University &

former CNN commentator

TemTemple

Vijay Prashad is a journalist and historian who appears regularly on Democracy Now! and the Real News Network. He is also the author or editor of over 30 books, including Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation.

Journalist & Director,

Tricontinental Institute for Social Research

Vijay Prashad

Moderated by:

NOT BACKING DOWN

Israel, Free Speech & the Battle for Palestinian Rights

Legendary rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, who has emerged as one of the world’s most prominent advocates for Palestinian human rights, joined leading activists and journalists at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass., on Saturday, May 4, for a panel discussion on the accelerating backlash against pro-Palestinian voices.

The panel, “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech & the Battle for Palestinian Rights,” took place despite a fierce effort by right-wing pro-Israel pressure groups to brand the event as anti-Semitic and shut it down.

In front of a capacity crowd, the panel addressed recent attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar and other progressives who have spoken out against Israel’s 50-year military occupation of Palestinian land, and pushed back against the claim that criticizing Israeli government policies is “anti-Semitic.”

Waters, who has himself been repeatedly vilified as an “anti-Semite” for his criticisms of Israel’s human rights abuses, was joined on the panel by Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour, who was recently targeted by a private Israeli intelligence firm as part ofa coordinated U.S. campaign to prevent her from speaking out against Israeli policies on American college campuses; Marc Lamont Hill, a professor and political commentator who was fired earlier this year by CNN for remarks he made in support of Palestinian rights; and Nation magazine sports editor and author Dave Zirin, a frequent contributor to MSNBC and ESPN who has been called a “self-hating Jew” for his criticisms of Israeli human rights abuses.

The panel was moderated by Vijay Prashad, a journalist and historian who appears regularly on Democracy Now! and the Real News Network and is the author or editor of over 30 books, including Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation.

The event was filmed and will be available to stream very soon. Please check back with us on this site for updates orsign up to be updatedwhen the video is released.